16 INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 5 
inns for travelers; they are like roadhouses or taverns, at 
which travelers stop. As for those not in use, their ruins 
indicate the grandeur and majesty which prevailed in 
those days. . . . [V4zquez de Espinosa, 1942, p. 387.]% 
A second Inca highway extended along the 
Coast of Peru from the present Ecuadorian border 
to the Chilean frontier; that it had been allowed to 
fall into disuse in early Colonial times is clearly 
indicated by the following passage from Vazquez 
de Espinosa: 
The other King’s Highway ran along the plains parallel 
with the coast within sight of the sea. This was over 24 
feet wide and was like a very straight avenue, built be- 
tween two adobe walls, strongly and carefully made, so 
that even today a considerable part of them remain stand- 
ing, and I have seen them on most of the plains of that 
Kingdom. 
This road runs from Tumbes and passes where the city 
of San Miguel de Piura stands and along all the valleys of 
that kingdom to the Kingdom of Chile, where the Plains 
Road and the Sierra Road come together. In all the 
plains valleys it had royal houses and apartments built 
with great pains; a large part of them remain standing and 
their ruins show what extensive and haughty buildings 
they were; but all has decayed with time. This King’s 
Highway for the plains was walled in where the rivers run 
down to the sea; but for long remote stretches and on the 
uninhabitable sand dunes, where they could not succeed 
in road construction, they laid out and marked off the 
road with rocks and stakes driven into the dunes; and as 
it does not rain in those regions, traces of them can be 
seen and remain standing in many localities. [Vdzquez 
de Espinosa, 1942, p. 388.] 74 
In Inca times travel was exclusively by foot and 
goods were transported on human backs and by 
means of llamas; hence these roads, in some regions 
precipitous and in others consisting of steps and 
staircases, at times clinging to vertical cliff faces 
and at others climbing steep gradients, were con- 
structed along such direct routes as only man and 
the llama can follow.2 Much has been written 
concerning the relay system of post runners, or 
chasqui, and the tambos, or wayside inns, which 
were located at intervals along the highways and 
which served to accommodate those who traveled 
23 Means (1942, p. 329) states that this Sierra highway extended from Pasto 
in Colombia to Cuzco, passing through Quito (in Ecuador), Ayavaca, Ca- 
jamarca, Huards, Jauja, Ayacucho, Vilcas (near modern Cangallo), and 
Abancay (see maps 1 and 2). From Cuzco the highway continued, via 
Juliaca and Puno, through Bolivia to Chile. For a summary description 
of the Inca communications system, see Rowe, 1946, pp. 229-233. 
2 According to Means (1942, p. 329) the Coastal highway followed the 
Coast from Tumbes only as far as Nazca. Here it went inland to join the 
Sierra highway at Vilcas (near modern Cangallo). From Cuzco the high- 
way returned to the Coast via Arequipa, Moquegua, Tacna, and Arica, and 
so down into northern Chile. 
38 This mode of travel has persisted to the present day essentially without 
change in such primitive villages as Huaychao, Huaylacucho, and Choclo- 
cocha. 
on official journeys.” So well, indeed, did this 
system operate, that both post runners and tambos 
survived the Conquest and functioned well into 
Colonial times (Means, 1932, pp. 226-228). Most 
of the important Inca towns and cities were located 
in the Sierra and many of those of the Central 
Highlands appear to have been founded primarily 
to serve as tambos.” 
It is well to bear in mind that, although Inca 
roads and communications were highly developed 
and complex, the system was designed primarily 
for political purposes, with the view of knitting 
together an empire. As Means (1942, p. 337) has 
pointed out, the highways were reserved exclu- 
sively for official uses and for officially approved 
journeys by armies, couriers, colonists, and by 
representatives of the state. Hence the great, 
highways did not necessarily affect the lives of the 
masses of the people, and even the post runner— 
since he spent his time of service passing back 
and forth shuttlewise between his own post and 
those next to it on each side—saw but little of 
any given road. 
THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 
The advent of the Spaniards and of the horse 
created important changes in the Inca system of 
foot transportation. Whereas man and the llama 
could travel the more direct routes, the horse, 
less sure-footed than the lama, had to make 
detours. In addition, while the Hama is able to 
find fodder almost anywhere in the high valleys 
and punas of the upland regions, the need for 
fodder and grain to feed horses and mules made it 
necessary to change the locations of many of the 
former Inca tambos (Romero, 1944, p. 68.) Sev- 
eral towns, such as Huancayo and Ayacucho, 
which appear to have been founded by the 
Spaniards principally as convenient wayside sta- 
tions for travelers, have grown subsequently into 
cities. In general, the Spanish system of com- 
munications was, wherever feasible, superimposed 
upop +hat employed by the Incas; in adapting it 
a “High own uses, the Spaniards did not improve 
it, dit: the pipe ines of horses and mules for 
Ww aetiined runners did not speed things up. 
(Means, 1932, p. 227). 
26 These aspects of the Inca communications system are described by 
Means, 1942, pp. 332-337. Also see Rowe, 1946, pp. 231-232. 
27 In this connection, modern place names which contain the Quechua 
word ‘‘tambo” or “tampu,” as Limatambo (near Cuzco), Acostambo, Jau- 
jatambo, and Paucartambo (near Lake Junin), probably reflect some of 
the routes traveled in Inca times. 
